


Will Graham Is A Good Lecturer, Damn It

by virdant



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Humor, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 18:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18254993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: Or: 5 Season 1 AUs where Will Graham remains in the Classroom





	Will Graham Is A Good Lecturer, Damn It

The thing is, Will Graham is _good_ at what he does.

In some cases, this means standing on the edge of a crime scene, reading the murderer’s intentions in the blood splatter on the wall. In some cases, this means rescuing stray dogs from the side of the road, luring them with quiet words and the promise of security.

In some cases—

It’s been a few years since Will Graham’s started teaching at the FBI Academy in Quantico. He was still a little frayed about the edges when he started, still sour about being rejected as a field agent. It’s different now. He has a dozen papers under his belt, hundreds of lecture slides prepared, and a minor cult following of students and graduates who roam the halls.

You see, Will Graham is good at what he does. And in this case, it means standing in front of the best and the brightest giving a lecture of serial killers.

Graham runs his classroom like a flipped classroom. He’ll assign the worst serial killers that America has to offer and the next class everybody has a chance to talk through their analysis before Graham stands. He’ll eviscerate every theory without naming names—just teach you how to think like them. (Dr. Bloom, when she guest lectures, is much better at explaining how to stop thinking like them.) He’ll respond to emails in a timely enough manner, and rumor has it that if you show up to office hours the day before a full moon, he’ll walk you through an entire crime scene. He won’t give answers, won’t make small talk, won’t make eye contact—but he’ll break down a serial killer into a set of metaphors and ask questions until you start to see a fraction of what he sees.

 _Really tough_ , is the consensus on Rate My Professor. _But brilliant. Do the assigned reading before lecture. Be prepared to be wrong. But you’ll learn a lot._

Will Graham has a 5.0 recommend rate.

(He also has a small handful of bright red chili peppers, not that he knows about that.)

Will Graham has a reputation in the Academy. He teaches an entire sequence of psychoanalysis, and it’s one of the most coveted set of courses to get into. Graduates who make it through his sequence without dropping out are recruited into the top teams, and the few that make it through with his grudging approval are lauded above all others. Will Graham is one of the best lecturers that FBI recruits can learn from.

Which means, of course, that his students will do anything to keep him in the classroom.

### 5.

Jack Crawford shows up right before psychoanalysis lecture ends, standing just inside the doorway so if they looked, the right side of the classroom can see him lurking, waiting in the shadows for Professor Graham to finish his lecture. The floor plan’s still on the chalkboard in Graham’s quick hand, annotations in all caps as his usual; Theresa Marlow, bleeding out from the neck, lies still on the projector screen; and Professor Graham’s putting away the notes that he barely looks at when Jack Crawford walks up.

“Mr. Graham,” he says. “Special Agent Jack Crawford. I head the Behavioral Sciences Unit.”

“We’ve met,” Graham says, sounding as surly as he always does when somebody approaches him after lecture. He puts up with questions during class, during office hours, and he’s practically friendly over email—everybody learns that quick, and nobody disrupts him after lecture after the first two weeks.

“Yes,” Crawford says, not seeming to notice. “We had a disagreement when we opened up the museum.”

“I disagreed with what you named it.”

Everybody knows not to linger behind after class. Graham doesn’t answer questions, never has, always tells people to send an email or wait for office hours. Everybody knows, but there’s something so exciting and illicit about the head of the BSU talking to Professor Graham that a few of them can’t help it. They shuffle towards the door, linger just out of sight.

Crawford asks, “Can I borrow your imagination?” and Graham looks away, past the head of the BSU, to where a gaggle of unfamiliar faces linger by the door. They’re terrible eavesdroppers, but Graham knows them, recognizes them from office hours. They’re bright and enthusiastic, and maybe if they focus on what they’re supposed to be doing instead of harrying off to exciting ventures, they’ll retire with accolades instead of a bullet in the shoulder.

“Can I borrow your imagination?” Crawford asks.

Will Graham’s a good lecturer, and he recognizes the need to set a good example.

“No,” he says, and pulls his bag onto his shoulder. “My students have questions for me.”

### 4.

It isn’t _weird_ for Bloom to sub in for Graham. She’s done it before, and she’ll probably do it again before the term’s up, but there’s something galling about it all the same. It’s been a few days of Bloom subbing in, and she’s not _bad_ , but she’s no Will Graham. Still, word on the street is that Graham’s going to be back Friday, so when Friday comes and it’s still Dr. Alana Bloom up by the pulpit, giving Graham’s lecture, there’s a collective sigh of disappointment.

Still, they all perk up when Jack Crawford comes in. He wants to know where Will Graham is. So does everybody else in the classroom. Bloom doesn’t tell Crawford. She doesn’t tell them where Graham is either. Still, they’re the ones that made it into the FBI Academy, and it doesn’t take too much digging to figure out that Graham’s been out in the field and now he’s in a hospital.

“Think he’s alright?” they ask, in the hallways and the dorms. There’s a brief swell of concern before word gets around that Graham’s fine, he’s visiting a victim, he’s not hurt and he’ll be back lecturing next week. 

Monday comes around, and Graham is not back. Graham is in Minnesota, hunting down the Shrike’s nest.

“Look,” one of them says. “Bloom’s great and all, but I was really looking forward to learning from Graham.”

A petition gets passed around. By the time Graham gets back from Minnesota, it’s made its rounds among the recruits and all the way up to the administration, who file it into consideration. 

When Graham shows up to his first class back, a seminar on serial killers, the entire room bursts into relieved applause.

“Thank you,” Graham says, in his usual terse tone. “Please, stop that.”

They stop. No need to chase Graham away now that he’s finally back. 

Graham gets straight to the point, grisly murders projected onto the screen per his usual modus operandi, “Garret Jacob Hobbs is dead,” he says. “The question now is how to stop those his story is going to inspire.”

Seminars with Will Graham vary. Some class periods Graham makes them go around and discuss among themselves, interjecting when he disagrees vehemently enough. Mostly he’s content to listen to them argue among themselves, dissecting each other’s arguments and only interjecting when he thinks it’s gone too off-course. This seminar, Graham runs more as a lecture, distilling points he’s observed about the Garrett Jacob Hobbs and his copycat. He solicits a discussion at the very end, but it’s brief and he turns to his bag once class is dismissed.

Bloom comes in, and Crawford soon afterwards. “You’re up for a commendation,” Crawford says. “And they’ve uh, okayed active return to the field.”

“The question is,” Bloom says, “do you want to go back to the field?”

Graham looks up.

“I want him back in the field,” Crawford says.

Bloom says, “The board won’t mind if you decide not to go back into the field. They’ve also gotten a petition from all your students asking you to stay on as a teacher.”

“What?” Graham says. He fumbles with his glasses.

Bloom says, wryly, “Apparently they didn’t like me covering your classes for a week. I think the petition title is ‘Bring Graham Back’. I’m beginning to think that you’re heading a cult with these students.”

“What?” he says, again.

Crawford repeats, “I want you back in the field.”

“They made a slogan?” Graham says, sounding lost.

“There was talk about getting pins and posters made if you didn’t come back.” Bloom grins.

“Pins?”

“Pins?” Crawford echoes. “I didn’t know they were going to make pins.”

“They were going to get a professional graphic designer to design them. There was talk about using Will’s face as the design.”

“Pins?” Graham repeated, looking lost.

“How do you know this?” Crawford asks Bloom.

She gives him a _look_. “I’ve been covering Will’s classes for a week.”

“Pins?” Graham says, clarity slowly creeping back into his eyes. “Posters?”

“‘Bring Graham Back’,” Alana confirms.

“God,” Graham says. He takes off his glasses, puts them back on again, and finally says, “I can’t let them graduate like this.”

“So you aren’t going back into the field?” Alana asks. She gives Jack a triumphant look.

Graham shakes his head. “Pins,” he says. “Posters. My—” he breaks off. “Maybe it’s better if I don’t go back into the field.”

### 3.

Graham teaches a seminar in addition to his regular lecture series. Most of the people in it are in the Academy specifically for profiling, and at least half are angling for serial murderers specifically. He throws in a bit of forensics, if he’s in a good mood.

His seminars are a bit more relaxed compared to his lectures—a bit more of a conversation. He’ll let you interrupt if you have something good enough to contribute. Not that most people do. Graham’s one of the best there is, and it’s clear when he’s laying out how to identify a serial killer by _understanding_ them.

But at some point, his seminars become a little less conversation, and a little more lecture. Oh, it’s nice to hear about the latest serial murderers in America. It’s nice to get up close and personal. But Graham, avoiding eye contact, lecturing dispassionately on the latest murders making their way across the land, is not what his seminar is for. His lectures, certainly, but not his seminars.

“Listen,” his students whisper in the hall. “I’ve got nothing against hearing about the newest serial killers from Graham, but you think we can actually get a conversation started again?”

Graham’s not one for conversation though.

So they start a conversation with the one who’s been meddling with the curriculum.

Head of the BAU, Jack Crawford. 

And as much as Jack Crawford manages his team with stubborn tenacity, there’s nothing like a full cohort of students trying to get their money’s worth knocking at his door in perfectly coordinated accord. They are, after all, the best and brightest that America has to offer. 

A month later, Graham’s back to his regular curriculum, and his seminar’s pleased to have him glaring at the wall behind their heads as he explains, yet again, how to think like a serial killer.

### 2.

News travels fast enough, so everybody knows that Jack Crawford hasn’t just tapped Graham for active crime scenes, but he’s making changes to Graham’s curriculum. Admittedly his first lecture’s brilliant, and he gives it to the public a few times, showing the world what all of the students already know. Graham is brilliant, has a knack for metaphors that just tick a little _too_ close into uncomfortable familiarity, and a tendency to demand that his students think at the same level that he does. His students—the ones that got into his courses for the semester—are smugly delighted that they’re getting first hand access to a whole set of fresh cases straight from Graham himself. The ones that didn’t make it in start plotting ways to audit.

But the lectures keep _going_ , on and on, into new serial killers without much about how to catch them or how to identify them or how to even think like them. It’s a list of serial killer after serial killer, what made them tick, who they murdered, an unending parade of corpses twisted into musical instruments and totem poles.

And then things start getting weird. Graham doesn’t show up for office hours, which isn’t unheard of, but usually he sends out an email and Dr. Bloom sticks a note up on his office door. This time he just doesn’t show up. His lectures get staid; he’s just as demanding, but his metaphors are a bit more dated than they usually are. Amanda went to fetch a notepad she left behind and found him sitting at his desk, staring into the distance. (He didn’t make eye contact, which wasn’t weird, but he also didn’t _avoid_ it either, which was.)

There is, his students say, something not right with Will Graham.

They’ve tried petitions, they’ve tried going to the administration, they’ve tried everything. At this point, something’s going on with Will Graham, and, well, they’ve been trained by the best to observe and analyze and profile.

“He’s really not looking well,” some of them point out as they wait to see if Graham’s going to actually hold office hours today. “It could be the flu.” Then it turns out that Graham has been to the doctor, that he’s gotten an MRI no less. Turns out it’s nothing, but he’s still missing office hours, he’s still handing back papers ungraded, and he’s been found wandering the hallways, his eyes unfocused.

They bandy about diagnoses before classes, after essays, and between readings. Some time, somewhere, someone mentions that perhaps Professor Graham ought to get a second opinion—just loud enough for him to overhear. Just to check. 

Professor Graham takes a medical leave of absence soon after. Turns out it was encephalitis. Dr. Bloom gives them extra credit points for observation and analysis, with a dash of a bit of relief thrown in for good measure.

### 1.

Will Graham’s been consulting for the BSU for a while now. It makes his lectures interesting; he assigns the cases and they talk through them in class. Well, Graham talks. His students mostly listen. There’s been less discussion and more listening lately—they’re new cases, though. It’s hard enough writing up a profile on cases that have been studied for years.

Still, his students whisper. It’s odd, isn’t it? Graham’s demanding, most of the time. These lectures are practically walks in the park. They just have to sit, to listen, and Graham will lay it out piece by piece instead of what he usually makes them do. It’s practically a gift. Will Graham does not give gifts.

Maybe it’ll come back to bite them on the midterm, they say in the hallways. But no, the midterm comes and goes, and it’s almost identical to the one he gave last year. It actually is identical, and Graham doesn’t give identical midterms. 

Something’s going on, and they’re going to find out what.

(Not that having the same midterm as last year’s cohort isn’t convenient, but if they wanted easy, they would have signed up for Dr. Bloom’s class.)

Graham has enough students—who have all been lured by his ratemyprofessor.com rating and not the chili peppers next to his name—that divvying up tasks isn’t too hard. They coopt a mostly empty room that probably was a storage room at some point before fading into disarray. There’s a whiteboard in the room, and that’s all that matters. They identify events, people of interest, and a timeline of slow and steady decline into despairing lecture quality.

A few weeks later, only one question remains.

“So, who, exactly, is this Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and how did he ruin Professor Graham?”

And several months later, when Will Graham sits back in his seat and watches his students, one after another, present on how they caught the Chesapeake Ripper, all that really can be said is that the greatest triumph is for the student to surpass the teacher.

Will Graham’s ratemyprofessor rating has never been better.

### Bonus: and that one Season 2 AU

Will’s been in the BSHCI for a while now. He’s sitting in his cell, waiting. The days blend, one after the other. He thinks about Hannibal. He thinks about his students.

He’s thinking about his job, when Kade Prunell comes.

“Am I still an FBI employee? Or that pending the outcome of my trial?” Will asks.

Kade Prunell frowns. The FBI Academy’s administration’s been plagued by petitions—multiple petitions—asking for Graham back. Every class that Graham’s teaching—every class that Graham’s _taught_ has submitted a petition asking for Graham to be reinstated.

“He could be a serial killer,” the poor assistant says every time another petition gets submitted.

“Graham?” one of them repeats, incredulously. “If he was going to be a serial killer, he would have murdered Jones after he kept asking inane questions in class. No way that Professor Graham’s a serial killer.”

“His entire lecture series is about thinking like serial killers,” another one of his students says. “Who better to teach us to think like a serial killer than a serial killer?”

“He could be a serial killer” another says. “and I’d still want to take his psychoanalysis class.”

Kade Prunell closes her eyes, the world tilts on its axis, and, like glass on asphalt, grinds out: “You’re still employed.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just have FEELINGS about Will's ability to communicate an idea through metaphor and analogy, okay?
> 
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